


Eating With Company

by losttothesea



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Body Image, Domestic Bliss, Fluff, M/M, Murder Husbands, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 07:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5239373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losttothesea/pseuds/losttothesea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will gets self-conscious about his belly. Hannibal helps him get over it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eating With Company

Will Graham’s sweater is too tight.

He frowns at himself in the mirror. Tugs petulantly at the hem. Frowns again.

“Hannibal?” he calls. “Did you—” He stops the question midway out of his mouth. Beyond foolish to think that laundry done under Hannibal’s jurisdiction would be anything less than exquisitely executed. 

His sweater didn’t shrink in the wash. _You can’t blame this on the clothes, Will_. _It’s because of—_

Hannibal angles elegantly into the room. “Tsk tsk, liebchen,” he chides. “I thought we’d talked about how rude it is to leave your questions unfinished.”

“Yes, well—” Will hears the pout in his own voice, pauses to consider correcting it.

“Well?”

“I’ve gained weight,” Will tells him, letting his lower lip droop slightly for effect.

“Have you?”

For once Hannibal’s facial expression—eyebrows cocked upwards just a fraction too high for true surprise—belie his clinical detachment. Will sighs and turns from the mirror to look him full on. “Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed.”

“Our bodies are always changing, Will. Constantly, we shed and regrow skin, lose and regenerate blood cells. Even now, we—”

“ _Hannibal_.” Now Hannibal does look genuinely started. Will is not in the habit of interrupting him.

Hannibal recovers quickly, as Hannibal always does. “Yes, my impatient little lamb?”

“I’m sorry. I just—science and—and _biology_ aren’t going to make me feel better right now. Look at me, Hannibal. I’m…” He gestures at himself, flailingly, futilely. “I’m _chubby_.” _What a ridiculous word_ , he thinks. _Chubby. Not a word for a grown man. Embarrassing._ “And it’s—” He takes a deep breath, forces himself to forge ahead. “It’s because I eat too much of your food,” he says in an anxious rush.

Hannibal waits a measured beat, as if expecting Will to continue. When Will does not, Hannibal— _the audacity!_ —smiles. Maddening and magical, that lopsided smirk. “I thought you… _enjoyed_ my cooking?” He draws out the word _enjoyed_ in a strangely un-Hannibal way: slow, languid, smug. _Teasing me, the bastard_.         

Will swallows hard, feeling heat rise in his chest. He loves Hannibal’s cooking, loves _watching_ him cook, loves the ferocity and precision, the intensity and the (surprising, somehow still always surprising) tenderness. “Of course I do, but—”

“Hush, my love,” Hannibal cuts in, and in one fluid motion bends over at the waist. _How does he manage to make even_ that _look graceful?_ He takes Will’s hips in his wide grasp and kisses the soft, gentle swell of belly peeking out from beneath the accursed sweater. Slips a hand lower down. “If you're fretting that you’ve eaten too much, little lamb,” Hannibal murmurs into Will’s skin, “then perhaps it is time for _me_ to gorge myself.”

Will closes his eyes, thinks of smoke and steel, sinew and scorch. His sweater is too tight, but now it is being lifted up and away from his body, Hannibal’s long smooth fingers dancing across his chest. His sweater is too tight, but now it is puddled on the floor at his feet, waiting to be joined by the rest of his clothes. His sweater is too tight, but nothing in the world has ever seemed to matter less.


End file.
